Interview

'Pharma the most happening industry vertical for us'

With pharma companies investing heavily in core activities such as drug R&D and marketing, non-core functions like procurement logistics and product distribution are outsourced. But because these functions are essential links in the pharma value chain, they need 'safe' handling. In an interview with Express Pharma, Safexpress's Chairman, Pawan Jain describes how his company has designed customised logistics services for pharma companies

What percent of Safexpress revenue comes from the pharma sector?

The pharma sector is the most happening industry vertical for us. Around one-sixth of our total revenues i.e. around 16 percent come from this vertical. Moreover, we have also been witnessing a healthy growth in spending on our services by pharma companies year-on-year.

What are the key products or services Safexpress offers to pharma customers?

Express Distribution, Samples distribution for medical representatives (MRs), Onsite customer support, and In-bound logistics consolidation are some of the services that we offer to our pharma customers. These services are designed specifically to fit the requirements of these companies.

Could you elaborate on each? What do you mean by Express Distribution and how is it different for pharma companies?

Unlike most other industries, the speed of movement of goods is extremely important for the pharma sector. This happens because many of their consignments we are required to carry contain life-saving drugs that need to be delivered quickly. There also is an element of products with a shorter life-span i.e. those with early expiry dates. Hence, speed of delivery equated with lowest transit time of goods, is a critical aspect of the pharma supply chain. That is where our offering of Express Distribution with Fastest Transit Time comes into the picture. It is an essential service for these customers.

You also mentioned about samples distribution. How critical is this area?

If you notice, in the case of most pharma companies, their MRs operate from home. While on the job, they carry with them samples of various products they need to promote and detail to the medical community. The logistics involved in taking these samples to a huge number of MRs scattered across the country is humongous. The factors such as accurate procurement and timely distribution of goods to the right place and persons, makes this process highly complex given the fragmented nature of the Indian market. We have therefore specially designed a service to meet this requirement of pharma customers, named as Distribution of MR samples.

What are the other pain points of pharma customers that Safexpress caters to?

Another important area that pharma companies are usually worried about is the in-bound movement of goods. Typically, pharma companies resort to multiple transporters who pick up goods from different suppliers across the country and deliver to the customer's (pharma manufacturing) site. The multiplicity of source points and procured items, along with the perishability factor makes this process difficult to manage. It requires coordination within various teams from manufacturing to logistics. Therefore, we offer a specialised service called 'In-bound Logistics Consolidation' to top pharma customers.

We do this consolidation for enhanced productivity in three steps. The first step involves order tracking from various suppliers. Step two involves order consolidation. And lastly it is about pick-up and delivery of goods to the customer site. Through this, we manage to bring down the pharma customer's inventory holding costs, since the customer need not purchase and store in bulk in advance. This results in reduced transit inventory levels and correspondingly lower costs. As an additional benefit, using our Definite Time Delivery System, customers can plan in a more organised and efficient manner, thus improving the overall productivity of the organisation.

What service support do you offer to your pharma customers?

Service support is the fourth critical component of our offerings to pharma customers. We offer on-site support Customer Relationship Management (CRM) support to some of our top pharma customers. We have created a single window helpdesk that takes care of all the customers' supply chain issues at one point and in a very low service turnaround time (TAT).

editorial.ep@expressindia.com